Before I start this, I just want to say NO ONE should be knows as The ____ Banksy. Not The New Banksy, not The Gay Banksy, not The American Banksy. Not only is it demeaning to Banksy- saying someone can reproduce what he has done for street art- but it’s a misrepresentation of any artist.

Every artist has their own message, own voice and to say you are the Russian version of another voice is a cop out. It’s lazy. By saying that you voice yourself of all responsibility of understanding who an artist is, or in this case, was. Yes he got the nickname for being brilliant, but don’t patronize him as an artist.

With that out of the way, the street artist known as Pasha 183 is dead. 28 years old and dead. No details have been released about his death.

In Los Angeles street art piracy is rampant. People steal, counterfeit, and straight up copy other artists all just to make some noise. Bandit decided it would be a good idea to post about this, while doing it himself.

How did he do this? By posting in a very famous spot used by Blek le Rat. The fact that there is art there and it is not Blek’s is sort of piracy in its own right. The question is, is this on purpose sort of doubly pointing out the hypocrisy of street art in LA or is it just another attention grab?